Blagojevich jury begins deliberations Friday

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his wife, Patti, arrive for the continuation of closing arguments in his corruption retrial at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Thursday morning.

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his wife, Patti, arrive for the continuation of closing arguments in his corruption retrial at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Thursday morning. (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune)

The fate of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is in the hands of a federal jury at his corruption retrial.

U. S. District Court Judge James Zagel instructed jurors on the law following closing arguments by the lawyers and then sent them from the courtroom at about 5:30 p.m.

Deliberations are expected to begin in earnest tomorrow morning.

The former governor has been on trial at the Dirksen U. S. Courthouse for about seven weeks. His first trial last summer ended with that jury deadlocked on all but one count. He was convicted of lying to the FBI on that one count.

Closing arguments have ended at the corruption retrial of Rod Blagojevich, and the jury is being instructed on the law by U.S. District Judge James Zagel before being sent out to begin deliberations.

As he wrapped up his argument, Assistant U.S. Atty. Reid Schar picked away at defenses the former governor has offered for allegations he abused the powers of his office.

“He lies over and over again when he thinks it’s in his best interest to do so,” Schar said. The former governor’s defense requires a series of witnesses to have testified against him falsely under oath, he said.

Then, taking the recorded calls from the fall of 2008 into question, “The defendant apparently is framing himself,” Schar said. The calls are consistent with what government witnesses said, not with the testimony of Blagojevich, “a convicted liar,” Schar said.

Blagojevich was convicted of lying to the FBI about his knowledge of fundraising last year at his first trial.

Schar ended his closing argument by asking for a conviction of a man who abused his power as governor.

“You are the only ones who can show him the difference between right and wrong,” Schar said of Blagojevich. “Your verdict will speak the truth. And the truth is he is guilty.”

4:52 p.m. Prosecutors: Tapes clearly show Blago corruption

Prosecutors have started the final closing argument of Rod Blagojevich’s corruption retrial, with Assistant U.S. Atty. Reid Schar telling jurors the former governor would have to be the victim of one of “the largest government frame-ups” ever for his version of the case to be true.

Schar repeatedly said of Blagojevich that “he’s the one” who took actions such as seeking campaign cash for official action and trying to get something for himself for a U.S. Senate seat in 2008.

Part of Blagojevich’s defense has been that he never really decided what to do with the seat, Schar said, despite him seeking a job or a cabinet post for it. That’s not a defense, Schar said, likening Blagojevich to a bank robber who is caught after giving a teller a note.

You can’t then say “if she put the money on the counter, I’m not sure I would have taken it,” he said.

Blagojevich spoke to union official Tom Balanoff, Schar said, who was a channel to Barack Obama, who had been elected president that fall. The defense said Blagojevich intent wasn’t clear, he pointed out.

“Not really, go back and listen to the tapes. They’re very clear, actually,” Schar said.

When Blagojevich testified, Schar said, he had often said he thought all of his efforts were legal. That is not a defense either, he said, telling the jury ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Schar turned Blagojevich’s excuse that he was surrounded by lawyers on its head, agreeing the former governor had access to several attorneys in 2008 when he was allegedly abusing the powers of his office.

“He rode right over them,” Schar said.

The rules tend not to apply to Blagojevich, he said, pointing out that when he testified Blagojevich often talked over his lawyers. Once, he violated U.S. District Judge James Zagel’s order not to testify about losing a cousin at Children’s Memorial Hospital, an alleged shakedown victim.

Jurors shouldn’t forget they had heard evidence that Blagojevich took state ethics training more than once, he said. That training makes it clear state employees can’t use their official power for themselves.

3:10 p.m. Blago defense: 'That is politics today,' and all legal

Like it or not, politicians can seek campaign donations from people even when they have business pending before them, Rod Blagojevich’s lawyer, Aaron Goldstein, told the jury this afternoon.

However, the lawyer is continuing to argue that Blagojevich was doing his best to keep state business and fundraising completely separate.

“We may not like the system. That is what we have,” Goldstein said. “That is politics today and that is the law.”

The jury will get an instruction that points this out, Goldstein said, so they can decide for themselves whether Blagojevich committed crimes.

“He didn’t. He absolutely didn’t,” said Goldstein, almost yelling.

Blagojevich didn’t try to shake down a road-building executive for a contribution by dangling a $6 billion tollway expansion plan in front of him, Goldstein contended. Gerald Krozel, the executive, had Blagojevich meet his bosses for lunch after Blagojevich supposedly tried to force a donation from him, he pointed out.

“Introduce them to the same guy that shook you down,” said Goldstein, calling it ridiculous. “Because it didn’t happen.”

Blagojevich asked for campaign contributions “within his rights,” Goldstein said. And a $1.8 billion tollway plan went ahead anyway without Blagojevich getting a cent, he told the jury.

Likewise, Blagojevich was properly seeking campaign money from John Johnston, a horse track owner and regular contributor who allegedly was a victim of another shakedown attempt. Johnston was asked for money, the government contends, with Blagojevich using as leverage a bill to divert casino funds to Johnston’s tracks that was awaiting his signature.

Goldstein agreed Blagojevich hadn’t signed the bill but pointed out the governor was arrested just two weeks after the legislation was sent to him for a signature. Blagojevich, who was counting on a campaign contribution from Johnston, was concerned that the bill be thoroughly reviewed, Goldstein said.

Blagojevich and lobbyist Alonzo “Lon” Monk, his former chief of staff, were secretly recorded in Blagojevich’s campaign offices in December 2008 discussing how to approach Johnston for a donation. Monk said he was going to go to Johnston without crossing lines, ask for the donation, “and one has nothing to do with the other.”

The defense contends those words should be taken literally, while prosecutors maintain the statement was virtually code that meant the opposite was true.

“They both knew they didn’t want to cross lines. That’s clear,” Goldstein said. “Sometimes in the real world, the words you say actually mean what you said.”

A lawyer for Rod Blagojevich resumed closing arguments this afternoon by telling jurors the result of all of Blagojevich’s alleged scheming is “nothing, nothing, nothing.”

Aaron Goldstein started by discussing the charge that the former governor tried to shake down Rahm Emanuel five years ago when Chicago’s new mayor was still in Congress.

Blagojevich is accused of holding up a state grant in 2006 for the Chicago Academy that Emanuel had sought for the school. Blagojevich allegedly was trying to force Emanuel’s Hollywood-agent brother to hold a fundraiser for him. But there was no evidence presented that it was Blagojevich who put the brakes on giving the school its money, Goldstein told the jury.

A witness from the state budget office had appeared for the defense to say the grant was complicated and research was needed to fund it, he pointed out. “Sometimes it’s just difficult,” Goldstein said.

Rod Blagojevich’s lawyer launched into his closing this afternoon by harkening back to a statement he made to jurors at the beginning of the trial.

“Rod didn’t get a dime,” Aaron Goldstein said. “I told you (that) you would hear the sound and the fury. In the end you would get nothing…The man didn’t intend to do anything they’re saying. And that is what this case is about.”

During her presentation, prosecutor Carrie Hamilton repeatedly returned to an analogy of a cop trying to hit up a stopped motorist for a bribe but in the end not accepting any money. That was still a crime, she kept saying. Goldstein sought to turn that analogy on its ear.

“They want to give you a hypothetical that’s nowhere near reality,” Goldstein said. “…Not ever does a police officer have the right to ask for money. A politician has the right to ask for campaign contributions.”

Goldstein sought to draw a distinction between the testimony of Blagojevich in his own defense and the line of prosecution witnesses, some of whom testified after reaching plea agreements with prosecutors that will likely result in reduced prison sentences.

The walk from the defense table to the witness stand looks short, Goldstein said, “but it’s a walk that took courage.”

“He did not have to do that…A defendant is not required to prove his innocence or call any witnesses at all. But he did it. He took that walk, and he told you the truth,” Goldstein continued.

And he contrasted Blagojevich’s voluntary testimony with “these tainted, compelled, and involuntary witnesses who walked through that door.” As he said it, Goldstein pointed to the door to the courtroom and just as that moment, a random spectator coincidentally walked through the door.

“I don’t think she got a deal,” Goldstein said, and the courtroom erupted in a rare bout of laughter that even U.S. District Judge James Zagel joined in.

Before Zagel broke the proceedings for lunch, Goldstein reminded jurors that Blagojevich is a motor-mouth who talks endlessly. What prosecutors claim was a governor scheming on wiretaps was really just a man thinking out loud, Goldstein said.

“He talked over me, over the judge, over the prosecutor,” said Goldstein, reminding jurors that when Blagojevich was on the stand he would often ignore his own attorney’s objections to questions from a prosecutor and answer before Zagel could rule.

“He likes to talk,” Goldstein said. “That’s all you heard. (Prosecutors) want you to believe this talk is a crime. It’s not. He floated ideas and that’s all it is.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. Carrie Hamilton wrapped up her presentation by discussing an alleged shakedown involving a 2006 grant to a Northwest Side school and tying it to other schemes Blagojevich is charged with plotting.

Blagojevich is accused of first agreeing to a $2 million grant for the school at the request of then-U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel and then, after the work was underway, trying to hold up release of the money until Emanuel’s Hollywood talent-agent brother held a fundraiser for the governor.

Hamilton told jurors that Blagojevich issued orders to that effect to two separate aides. The grant eventually was paid out, but Hamilton said Blagojevich ordered it slow-walked and the money disbursed in a unique way to drag out the process.

The reason, she argued, was that Blagojevich had publicly announced the grant so he felt pressure to release the money. But she claimed he learned a lesson from the incident and applied it two years later in other schemes in which he delayed announcement of a tollway expansion plan and a rate increase for pediatric doctors so he could more effectively leverage them for fundraising.

Hamilton also highlighted Blagojevich’s claims during his testimony that he had only a hazy memory of details of the grant and couldn’t remember significant discussions about it with aides. She said Blagojevich’s memory was extremely convenient and pointed out that at other points during his testimony he quoted in detail words he had said and things he had done years earlier.

“He remembers details when he thinks it’s going to help him and he suddenly has amnesia when he thinks it might hurt,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton concluded by playing a snippet from a wiretap recorded on Nov. 10, 2008, in which Blagojevich exploded when he realized that then President-elect Barack Obama was not willing to reward Blagojevich for appointing an Obama friend to the U.S. Senate.

“I mean you guys are telling me I just gotta suck it up for two years and do nothing. Give this (expletive) his senator?” Blagojevich said on the tape. “(expletive) him.”

“That is in his mind his response to the president elect of the United States,” Hamilton said. “You want something from me, for nothing, for nothing?”

Finally, Hamilton read to jurors a statement Blagojevich released after the conviction of another public official. He said “today’s verdict proves that no one is above the law and just as important is that the government is supposed to exist for the good of the people and not the other way around,” Hamilton said.

“Hold him to his words," she concluded. “The people come first and no one is above the law.”________________________________________________________________________________

Rod Blagojevich remains stone-faced through Assistant U.S. Atty. Carrie Hamilton’s narrative as she draws parallels in the former governor's alleged shakedowns involving the Illinois tollway and Children’s Memorial Hospital.

Prosecutors claim Blagojevich tried to pressure road building executive Gerald Krozel to raise $500,000 in campaign contributions. The bait, they claim, was a two-phased, multibillion-dollar expansion program for the tollway that would have been a financial boon to road builders at a time that the economy was swooning.

They also contend Blagojevich tried to get Children’s CEO Patrick Magoon to raise $25,000 as the price for agreeing to go forward with an $8 million rate increase for pediatric specialists.

One of the common factors was the key date Jan. 1, 2009, the date a new state ethics law was to go into effect and significantly curb Blagojevich’s ability to raise money from state vendors. Prosecutors say Blagojevich was in a tizzy trying to raise as much as he could before then.

Hamilton pointed out that Blagojevich discussed with Krozel at a September 2008 meeting both his fundraising wish and the tollway expansion plans. The governor said he was going to announce a first phase of the tollway project within a few weeks and hold off on announcing the second, much larger portion until after the first of the year. Krozel testified that delay made it clear to him that he was being squeezed.

In his testimony, Blagojevich claimed he never told Krozel that he would announce the second tollway phase. Hamilton said that simply wasn’t true and pointed to testimony from six different witnesses who said they heard Blagojevich say he did plan to push it.

Furthermore, she said, Blagojevich advisers Lon Monk and John Wyma testified that Blagojevich expressly linked the tollway project to fundraising help in conversations with them, adding the words “if they don’t perform, eff them” for emphasis.”

The Children’s Memorial scheme followed a similar script, Hamilton charged. She said Blagojevich talked to Children’s CEO Pat Magoon on Sept. 23, 2008, about a possible rate increase but didn’t tell him yes for nearly another month.

In between, Hamilton pointed out, Blagojevich set the wheels in motion to prod Magoon to raise $50,000 for the governor’s campaign fund, a goal that was eventually reduced to $25,000. Hamilton said Blagojevich talked to Wyma and the governor’s brother, Robert, about his intention to approve the rate increase. Wyma testified that in the same conversation, Blagojevich said, “I’m going to do the rate increase, let’s get Magoon for 50.”

Hamilton said Wyma testified that he knew exactly what Blagojevich was up to because he had used similar language just days before in discussing how to hit up Krozel for money in connection with the tollway expansion.

When Blagojevich finally delivered the good news about the rate increase to Magoon in Oct. 17, 2008, Hamilton pointed out that Blagojevich said the increase was not to go into effect until Jan. 1 and asked the hospital official to keep quiet about it until then.

“This guy is the health care governor,” Hamilton said in reference to Blagojevich’s self-image as a champion of expanded health care. “Pat Magoon said it is totally out of character for him not to get publicity on these things. Why doesn’t he want it out there right away?…Five days later, he gets his answer.”

That was a call from Robert Blagojevich, the governor’s chief fundraiser, asking for money. Magoon didn’t return Robert Blagojevich’s calls, however, and the then-governor later quizzed an aide on whether the rate increase could be delayed, claiming budgetary reasons.

Hamilton told jurors the budget concern was a red herring, and she pointed to a wiretap call that prosecutors played concerning an unrelated matter involving the Cubs, Blagojevich’s favorite team. On the call, Blagojevich is heard directing chief of staff John Harris to find $15 million dollars -- twice the cost of the pediatric rate increase -- to help the team out with rehab expenses at Wrigley Field.

He tells Harris to “find a way” to come up with the money, Hamilton pointed out. “So don’t believe for one second that any of this with Children’s had anything to do with the budget,” she argued. “He was concerned about fundraising.”

What should be the last day of closing arguments in the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial has begun, with Asst. U.S. Attorney Carrie Hamilton picking up where she left off Wednesday walking jurors step by step through complicated pieces of evidence and contending they fit together into an inescapable conclusion that the former governor was corrupt.

After spending her time yesterday focusing on the alleged plot to sell a U.S. Senate seat, Hamilton is now moving on to other alleged schemes hatched by Blagojevich. First she is concentrating on charges that Blagojevich tried to squeeze Maywood Park owner John Johnston into $100,000 in campaign donations by holding up approval of legislation beneficial to Johnston and race track owners.

The measure in question was in effect a renewal of a bill from 2006 that required casino owners to transfer a slice of their revenues to horse tracks that had been harmed by the growth of riverboat gambling in Illinois.

Hamilton pointed out that when the bill passed in 2006, Blagojevich signed it a day later. But that measure expired and when the legislature revived it on Nov. 24, 2008, Blagojevich didn’t act swiftly.

Blagojevich contends the delay was warranted because he was worried that House Speaker Michael Madigan, his nemesis, may have laced it with hidden language that could trim back Blagojevich’s powers in unrelated areas.

But Hamilton told jurors to pay attention to an email chain from top Blagojevich aides on Nov. 26, 2008, that green-lighted the signing of the bill. One of the members on the chain was Bill Quinlan, Blagojevich’s own general counsel.

Another participant on the chain was John Harris, Blagojevich’s chief of staff, who testified at the trial after cutting a plea deal with prosecutors. Harris testified that the email chain demonstrated Blagojevich’s advice had concluded there was “no poison pill language in this bill,” Hamilton argued.

Yet that same day, she said, Blagojevich was recorded on a wiretap saying he was putting a hold on the bill until it can be more thoroughly scrutinized.

Hamilton also pointed to what she said were gaping holes in Blagojevich’s timeline of events.

She pointed out that when Blagojevich testified he mentioned he became even more worried about signing the bill after receiving a phone call from former adviser Christopher Kelly, who was then facing federal indictment on tax charges. On the call, Kelly mentioned a possible attempt to obtain a presidential pardon for himself.

After the call, Blagojevich said he realized that Kelly was close to Johnston and came to conclude that Kelly might have been trying to press the governor to sign the racing bill as part of an elaborate scheme to impress the horse track owner. And so Blagojevich offered that as another reason to delay his signing.

Hamilton said that makes no sense because Kelly’s call to Blagojevich was on Nov. 27, 2008, one day after Blagojevich had already declared his intention to slow down action on the bill.

“This is a made up, after-the-fact attempt to confuse you,” she told jurors.

Jurors likely to get Blagojevich case today

5:57 a.m. CDT, June 9, 2011

By the end of today, jurors in the corruption retrial of Rod Blagojevich will likely be deliberating the former governor's fate.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers will spend much of the day delivering closing arguments in a case where the ousted Illinois political leader stands accused of widespread abuse of his office for personal gain -- including an alleged attempt to profit from his power to appoint President Barack Obama's successor as U.S. senator.

U.S. District Judge James Zagel has allotted up to eight hours for closing arguments and prosecutors began on Wednesday. But Zagel also said he expects the lawyers to finish talking in time to get the case to the jury sometime Thursday.

As closing arguments began, a prosecutor pointed jurors to a trove of government wiretaps,saying the undercover recordings prove his guilt by revealing what the then-governor said "when he thought that no one else was listening."

"Call after call, he gives it to you in his own words," Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie Hamilton told jurors after testimony had concluded moments earlier in the seven-week trial.

Hamilton told jurors that among the recorded calls they could rely on was one where Blagojevich famously described his power to appoint a new senator as "(expletive) golden." The then-governor saw it as his ticket out of Illinois, away from his problems leading the state and as the solution to his personal financial woes, she said.

"Listen to the tone of his voice. You can hear him smiling," she said. "He's giddy."

Hamilton broke down the charges against Blagojevich with the intensity expected from a federal prosecutor arguing for the guilt of a former governor but with the pacing and precision of a schoolteacher trying to walk a group of students through a complicated lesson.

All the jury really had to decide was whether Blagojevich tried to get a personal benefit for himself in exchange for an official act, she said, but it was clear prosecutors were leaving nothing to chance after the jury that heard the case last summer was only able to reach a verdict on a single count.

There were timelines for the jury on an overhead screen in the courtroom and charts that broke down each criminal count and linked them to specific calls in the case and quotes from Blagojevich himself. It was clear prosecutors intended to provide a simple roadmap to a conviction for the jury, which responded by taking notes feverishly at times as Hamilton spoke.

For each charge, Hamilton told the jury which tab in their binder of transcripts of recorded calls in the case they could flip open to find an incriminating statement.

As they did in their opening statement at the retrial last month, prosecutors likened Blagojevich to a corrupt police officer who is willing to tear up speeding tickets in exchange for bribes. That cop can't use a defense that illicit deals never happened because motorists wouldn't go along — as Hamilton said Blagojevich is trying to do.

Blagojevich never successfully brought in money for the Senate seat or in other shakedown attempts, but Hamilton said that doesn't matter. The law covers bribery attempts, and a police officer can't go around seeking bribes and have it be a crime "only if someone paid up."

Hamilton also used the same metaphor to tear at another part of the Blagojevich defense. He testified that he never made a decision about the Senate seat and just bounced all kinds of good, bad and ugly ideas off of advisers and Obama messengers.

Hamilton said that's like the same officer being caught on tape offering to tear up tickets and then arguing: "I just floated the idea. I hadn't decided if I was going to take the 50 bucks if someone handed it to me."

The jury only need find that Blagojevich planned to use state action — signing legislation, giving a grant or appointing a senator — as a bargaining chip for something like campaign money or a new job that would be to his personal benefit, Hamilton said. "The crime is the plan," she said.

The prosecutor sought to throw cold water on Blagojevich's claim during his seven days on the witness stand that his often meandering talk on the Senate seat in the recordings was leading up to a hoped-for deal to use the vacancy as leverage to secure legislative gains in Springfield

"It's clear he knew that's what was going on," Hamilton insisted of one offer Blagojevich allegedly pursued — $1.5 million in campaign money in exchange for appointing U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. to the vacancy.

On one call Hamilton called "damning," Blagojevich directed his brother to connect with Raghu Nayak, the Jackson supporter he testified he knew was behind the $1.5 million offer. When he took the stand, Blagojevich said he was seeking tangible political support — such as having Jackson get behind a mortgage foreclosure bill — not money.

But that made no sense, Hamilton said.

"He's the bribe guy, not the mortgage foreclosure guy." she mockingly said of Nayak. "(Blagojevich's) words on the tape make his guilt crystal clear."

Blagojevich is accused of trying to trade the Senate seat for an ambassadorship, a Cabinet post or a lucrative position heading an advocacy organization that wealthy Obama friends would fund. He wasn't happy when he got a "no" back, Hamilton said, pointing the jury to another call where Blagojevich heard back from the Obama team that the incoming president would be "thankful and appreciative" if his friend Valerie Jarrett was appointed.

Blagojevich responded, "(Expletive) them."

"He doesn't want thanks and appreciation — he wants a job," said Hamilton.

Blagojevich sat stoically, his lips pursed and hands folded, as he listened to Hamilton describe him as a desperate and corrupt governor who criminally violated the oath of office he twice took: to use the powers of his office solely for the benefit of the people of Illinois.

"The ultimate crime is the destruction of the faith and trust that the people placed in the defendant," she said.

Hamilton's narrative capped a day when prosecutors and Blagojevich's lawyers quizzed a last flurry of witnesses, including a pair of FBI agents who interviewed the then-governor in 2005 about his fundraising activities. That interview led to Blagojevich's sole conviction last summer on a count of lying to the FBI.

Within minutes of that verdict, Blagojevich suggested at a news conference that the FBI account of his statements at the interview may have been doctored because the government refused to allow his lawyers to bring a court stenographer into the session. In a blistering cross-examination of Blagojevich last week, Hamilton's partner, Assistant U.S. Attorney Reid Schar, ripped into the former governor's claim as disingenuous.

On Wednesday, Special Agent Patrick Murphy testified that he brought audio recording equipment to the Blagojevich interview but that the governor's lawyer at the time refused to allow it to be used.

Another witness called by prosecutors was construction industry official Richard Olsen, who testified about a September 2008 lunch he and other colleagues had with Blagojevich during which the governor talked about multibillion-dollar tollway construction plans to help recession-ravaged road builders. Blagojevich is charged with trying to shake down a subordinate of Olsen's for $500,000 in fundraising before agreeing to proceed with most of the tollway work.

Olsen said one thing that stuck in his mind about the meal was how impressed Blagojevich seemed to be with himself.

"He said he was the best damned governor in the history of the U.S.," recalled Olsen. "He cited the example of seniors not having to pay for bus passes."

A judge entered a not guilty plea Tuesday for a suspended Broward Sheriff's deputy accused of shooting a man in the leg during an off-duty confrontation at the Hollywood home the victim shared with his girlfriend.